Gabriel of Dionysiou

Elder Gabriel of Dionysiou, in the world George Kazazis, was abbot of the Monastery of Dionysiou on Mount Athos and fell asleep in the Lord on 6 November 1983. He is honoured by the faithful as one of the great spiritual fathers of Athos in the twentieth century, without synodal canonization. Constantine Cavarnos wrote a book about him, and some call him "the abbot of abbots" of the twentieth century.

He was born in 1886 in the village of Mesenikolas in Karditsa, western Thessaly, to Theodosios and Konstantina Kazazis. At seventeen he enlisted in the guerrilla army of Pavlos Melas in the Macedonian Struggle. In 1910 he moved to Mount Athos, to the Monastery of Dionysiou, and received the monastic name Gabriel. In the First World War he was taken prisoner and held in Bulgaria; after his release he returned to monastic life.

In July 1936 he was made abbot of Dionysiou, succeeding Abbot Dositheos, and he remained in that office until 1979, when Charalambos succeeded him. During the German occupation in the Second World War he played an important part in the negotiations with the occupiers, which helped Mount Athos to be spared bloodshed and fighting. He fell asleep at the Monastery of Dionysiou, where he was buried, on 6 November 1983 (25 October by the old calendar), at the age of ninety-⁠six or ninety-⁠seven.